Sheba

Her Highness

The White Princess

 

Affection is limited to a tail-wag at quarter-to-half speed. There is no licking, and she barely tolerates my affection. She is head shy, so I can’t pat her on the head too much. If I show her affection when we are both standing, she will walk around to face me and then she will push herself through my legs and then she stops, offering me her rearend so I will scratch it. My affection becomes practical and self-serving. So, when I love her, she gives me her ass!

When we go to Rollo Park to play fetch, as we get close to the park, she always behaves the same way. She goes mad with excitement, whining with anticipation. It’s only when we go there, that she acts this way. But when it comes time to play, I throw the ball, and she becomes a greyhound, pounding on the turf like a racehorse. But she won’t bring the ball back to me, I must walk to her to fetch it and throw it again.

However, ….

When I leave her home, as I did the other night to go to dinner at Kris and Steve’s, she jumps up and turns around, and yips and pants, and she wags at full speed when I come home. And lately, when we get into the car to go somewhere, she walks up behind my seat—she has a four-foot by eight-foot raised bed in the back of my van—and she puts her head on my shoulder. Not only that, she makes a purring noise as I scratch and caress her head with my hands. I know that she loves it because it’s a regular habit that she initiated, and it thrills me.

When a car is coming by, if we are walking on the (curb-less) street, she comes to me and sits where I point when I call her and point at the ground. When I see people coming towards us along the trial, I’ll say ‘sit,’ and I’ll point, and she’ll sit on her mark. She’s a very quick learn, and she has quite a handy vocabulary.

I’ve come to love the feel of her falling against my back and then sliding down to sleep on the bed beside me when we go to bed. And I love how she runs ahead of me then stops, turns, pauses to seemingly check that we are still together, then turns and keeps on going when we are trail walking. 

Also, there are spontaneous fits of glee when we are in large open spaces. She gets the zoomies, but throughout her disposal of energy, she comes to me, full tail, sometimes barking, in full-on canine ecstasy, then she takes off and runs in circles before returning to me again. I’m always included in her bliss. Every six weeks, she goes to the groomer’s salon. She doesn’t like going; I must leash her to get her into the shop. And when I pick her up, I get the same welcome as when I come home to her, after having been out for a while.

We often walk the Ricki trail. When we park there, I park on the street beside a home with two golden retrievers. The retrievers go nuts when they see me because I love them and I always make a fuss with them. I never just walk past. Sheba hasn’t an ounce of enthusiasm for them or any other living things except, of course, for we who serve. Most of my friends come to be loved after an initial warning of loud barking when they arrive.

Hence her qualifier, her nickname. 

She was a surprise. I got a call one Sunday night and the friendly gentleman told me that he’d be coming to my house on Tuesday with my puppy, and he told me the puppy, Polar, was paid for. I was too embarrassed to say I had no idea what he was talking about. But a free puppy!

I’m sure I paid for all or part of the fee for the dog. I just don’t remember anything of the purchasing because I was still in full-on breakdown mode. I remember Dr. Shoja bringing up the subject of a dog. Her Highness was eight weeks old when she arrived. I slept on the floor in the living room on a big foamy for several months so that she could sleep with me. 

We’ve spent every day and night together for over eight years (except for when I had my heart attack). I have local fame. I have a fan base of six who will attest to my love of animals. All the local dog owners know that. The lunch I had with Sandi the other day came out of meeting her because she has an Airedale and I am smitten with all Airedales. When I was baptized, Connie chose Francis for my confirmation name after the saint who so famously loved animals.

I feel blessed to have a passion for animals. Aleck, a cat, was my first love. He was abandoned like I was. I bonded with a big, beautiful longhair, white, part-Persian cat. He was my first experience of feeling love. I was probably twelve years old at the time.

Through contacts of Don, I got access to the animals in the zoo in Stanley Park. I sometimes cared for animals needing round-the clock feeding, so I’d get to bring them home. And as a child, my favourite thing to do was to go to visit the farm animals on the UBC campus. Don would drive me.

Now that I know so much more about the psychology of child neglect from Dr. Shoja (whom I see today). I believe my passion for animals might have saved me, helped me get through life fully functional. Animals are my life force; I think the love I feel for them nourished me, holding off my breakdown until late in life. 

My behavioral name is Tarzan.

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Today, snow flurries are predicted, but I am confident that we’ll not get any. Snow was predicted for Sunday and Monday and we got none. Hence my confidence that we won’t get any today, and there is no snow predicted in the coming week, so I’m very happy.